Sensei Cindy

Rob took some pictures of my black belt test - mostly at the end. Apparently phone cameras aren't too good at action shots so there's a lot of blurring, but several of them are fun anyway. This one is from the self-defense portion of the night. Mike, a very sweet TKD black belt is the guy going for a roll.

Last night was my first night teaching as a black belt. Sensei called (a whole five minutes before I headed out the door for class) to say he would be late, and possibly might not make it at all. Sensei D wasn't there when class time rolled around, so I was on.

I was surprised how much difference a week and a change of belt color made. I've taught classes now and then ever since I was a blue belt (and taught one as an orange belt, but that was special circumstances), so I wasn't expecting a change from prior experience. Instead, the students (all three of them, but still), treated me perceptibly differently, and perhaps in response I was a lot more confident. I tried several exercises I've known about for a while, but had never tried in class before. All of the kids seemed to be enjoying themselves and were learning things at the same time. I even got our teen brown belt guy to do a little bit of grappling and enjoy it - normally he responds to any teaching of joint locks, grappling, or escapes with barely concealed boredom.

Sensei D showed up very late in the class (last 20 minutes), but didn't join in. Instead he watched and took some photos with his phone, which he e-mailed to me later. He had no commentary on the class at all, which I will chose to interpret positively.

School started Wednesday. Both kids like their teachers thus far. Robbie had a bit of a bus disaster on day 1. He had never ridden a school bus before, so he hadn't realized he needed to remember the bus number (even though I told it to him at least three separate times). When he couldn't find his bus after school, he nerved himself up to ask the principal, but spoke so quietly that the man misheard him and put him on the wrong bus - not even one going to another part of our neighborhood, but one going to a completely different town. It took us about 90 minutes to retrieve him, during which both Robbie and Mommy were fairly upset. His bus number is written down in his school planner now, and day two went smoothly.

Aaron is trying out for the school cross-country team next week. I'll be flabbergasted, but extremely proud if he makes it on (endurance is a continuing problem for him). The elementary school open house is next Tues., but we haven't had any information about the middle school OH yet.